Account based marketing will deliver the most return of any other marketing initiative you may implement. You’ll get sales from the most relevant prospects because your marketing is laser focused. Sales cycles shorten, ROI gets a boost and lifetime customer relationships are solidified. So what is the charge for this overflow of marketing and sales riches? It depends.
Budgeting for account based marketing can be a wild ride because each campaign has different variables to manage. More specifically, you’ll want to budget based on accounts and the value each one has to your business. It’s not like you define a budget and create a campaign to reach as many people as possible. This route is more targeted, more precise.
When considering a budget, a modest investment may be entirely appropriate for established customers, but you’ll have to beef up the budget for campaigns targeted at defined prospects or new customers.
The size of any potential sale will also provide guidance on how much money to invest in campaigns. But, take heart. There are some guidelines that will help you determine appropriate and relevant budgeting for your account based marketing initiatives.
There’s no set budgeting formula for account based marketing. The very nature of account based marketing defines some of the parameters of creating a budget. Budgets will be as individual as the customers you target. But there are some guidelines and elements to consider.
Business size. Quite simply, the larger the business size, the larger the budget you’ll need to accommodate the number of direct decision makers and influencers within it.
Departments. Larger businesses have more departments with the probability of at least more influencers to consider. Costs can vary due to the variables in messaging for separate audiences.
How well you are known. Brand awareness might be a surprising element to include in a budgeting exercise but you need to incorporate targets from all levels of a sales funnel. You’ll need to invest more in prospective clients than you will on current and eager customers.
The complexity of your product. Some products and solutions meet universal needs and not much budget is necessary for explanation. However, for more complicated products, you’ll need more communications targeted to decision makers. Keep in mind that key decision makers may be aware of your offerings but influencers may require top of funnel communications.
The competitive landscape. You want to get as close as possible, as soon as possible to your coveted accounts. This will take on a heightened nature if there are competitors heavily wooing your prospective customers. Logic tells you that you’ll need to boost your budget for more communications to stay top of mind with the accounts you want to acquire.
Timing is almost everything. It just makes sense that if one of your desired accounts has just made a purchase from another business, they will not be open to new purchases. But, every widget eventually wears out and you can send brand and product communications on a steady basis so that you’ll be in their consideration set when the time comes for new purchases.
Marketing technology. You simply can’t exist in today’s digital account acquisition work without the right marketing technology. You’ll be able to direct specific messaging to targets, pivot easily when necessary and define highly targeted campaigns.
Taking these elements into account will help you focus on the appropriate budget as campaigns extend and you acquire new business. One word of caution—the worst thing you can do is define an overarching budget and divide it by the number of accounts you want to reach. That would be woefully irrelevant and would dilute any campaigns you create. The key is to always be targeted, not general, when crafting account based marketing initiatives.
More and more data becomes available all the time and marketers can take advantage of specific information to their advantage. They can also work to create the best campaigns they can but most find the services of a marketing agency is the missing link to their successful completion of campaigns and results.
Quantum Marketing has the experience, tools and people to support you with content creation, marketing plans, media spend, tools and more. We can also provide analyses of campaign performance so that your messaging is on target and reaching the correct people at various levels within the enterprise. Engaging with Quantum will be the foundation of a strong business relationship that will bring more account based customer loyalty and revenue your way for years to come.
How to drive profit from Account-Based Marketing
The main reason why ABM has caught the imagination of the marketing community is simple: it’s proven to deliver results. With it comes the ability to deliver more meaningful and relevant messages that are tailored to a precise audience. But then you already knew that. What you possibly don’t know so well are the key factors behind a successful ABM programme, or the main pitfalls to avoid. At least until you opened this ebook…
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